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Episode 3: A Message of Hope
"The EDF, huh?" an eighteen year-old Alex Wildstar asked his younger brother, "What made you decide that?"
"'Cuz that's what you're doing," ten year-old Derek replied, "I wanna be a space pilot, just like you." The boy grinned up at his older brother.
"Well, the fighters we're using right now are pretty rough – only in the late experimental stages," the young man said, "We're not even sure that they'll hold up in full vacuum."
"Ah, they will," Derek dismissed, "Those crazy aliens won't know what hit 'em when you take 'em out."
Alex let a sad smile cross his face, "I wish we didn't have to think about that at all, little brother… I'd rather have never entered the cockpit of one of those fighters than to have to fight these… Gamilons like we are now."
Derek look at his brother, astonished, "You'd give up flying?"
"Yeah, I would." Alex replied, "If it meant no more bombings; I'd give up more than that if it came to it."
The memory of his brother's words echoed in Derek's mind as he stepped through the doors of Central Hospital in Tokyo.
The medical center was stationed underground, just like everything else these days, right next to EDF headquarters. The large, white building stood tall, towering over the neighboring military installation.
Derek's boots clicked on the hard floor, accompanied by Mark's footsteps. Wildstar stared down at his freshly-shined white and red boots as he took first one step and then another on his and Mark's trip up to see the resident physician after their time off-world.
Rumor was that Central just got a new physician, some old guy who was a ship's doctor for longer than either Derek or Mark had been alive. From everything he'd heard the guy sounded like a whack-job: talked to himself incessantly, drank pretty heavily while he was off-duty – although he was known to have a few before a major surgery too – dabbled in robotics, and was good pals with his cat. Other than that, the cadets didn't really know much about him.
"Out of the way! Both of you!" the exclamation startled both young men and they whirled around to see who was barreling down the hallway towards them.
A short, bald man with glasses and a whiny voice raced towards them at top speed, his short legs a blur as he ran.
"Move!" he shouted again.
Derek and Mark instantly parted and the man whooshed through the gap and disappeared through a door a dozen feet ahead of them.
"Doctor! Wait!" another voice – this one sounding artificial – yelled after the short man. Wildstar and Venture looked back the way the man had come and saw, to their astonishment, a robot strongly resembling a bright red barrel with feet and arms. His domed head swiveled this way and that, trying to figure out which door the stranger skirted through.
Derek and Mark looked on confused as the doctor's head peeked out the door and he shouted back at the robot, "IQ-9, I told you to get me some soap!"
"I did!" the robot warbled back loudly as he careened towards the doctor.
"Then get in here! Who knows what's hiding in that capsule?"
The robot squeezed through the space between the young men without acknowledging them.
"I didn't see anything hiding in it, doctor," the robot replied.
"Stop being so literal, you walking tin can," said the doctor, giving the robot a small scowl, "I thought I programmed you better than that."
"Abstract thought is not quantitative, doctor," replied the machine.
"Oh. I hadn't thought of that," the little man looked like the thought never occurred to him to explain the abstract.
Derek and Mark started to walk on past the strange duo, but stopped short when they heard a third voice coming from behind them.
"Doctor Sane, the body is clean," a woman called to the short man.
Both cadets' heads turned to see the source of the gentle sound gracing their ears. Their eyes widened when they saw her.
"Wildstar…" Venture whispered to Derek.
"Yeah… I know…" Derek replied in kind, "She looks just like…"
"That pilot from the ship," Mark finished the sentence quietly.
The two looked at each other before staring back at the woman. Judging by her apparel, she was a nurse here at Central. Her knee-length white dress and high, white boots both bore the hospital's red insignia and the tablet she carried was marked too.
The woman didn't seem to notice the gawking men as she streaked past them and joined the robot.
Derek and Mark didn't make a move to leave the scene.
"What're you two staring at?" the doctor's shrill question finally pried the cadets' eyes away from the nurse's all-too-familiar face.
"Uh… Sorry," Derek muttered, raising his hand to scratch his head and discretely pretending not to notice the nurse.
Mark moved to cover their pause, "Are you talking about the body of the woman on the ship from the Mars wreck?"
"That is correct," the response came from the robot – "IQ-9" as the doctor called it earlier.
"We're the ones who found her." Venture put in.
"Very good. Now go on to wherever you were headed in the first place," the doctor tried to shoo them away.
"But –" Derek tried to protest and Mark couldn't help but be just the tiniest bit happy his friend was speaking again for the moment.
"Go!" the doctor ordered, stubby finger pointing down the hallway.
"I think my friend wanted to ask about your… companion," Mark offered, buying them a little more time.
"This is IQ-9. He's part of the newest line of artificially intelligent machines from Sandor Aerospace,*" replied the doctor.
"Most robots in hospitals are only a five series, but I am a nine," the machine put in smugly.
"Uh…" Mark felt awkward, not knowing exactly how to respond to the doctor's answer.
"Doctor Sane, I'm taking the samples up to the lab," the nurse said in the interim silence.
"Thank you," the doctor replied. The nurse turned to leave and Mark could almost hear Derek's disappointed sigh.
"I think he meant her," Mark inclined his head towards the departing young woman.
"Oh!" Doctor Sane said, then laughed, "That's Nova Forrester – best nurse I've got." He chuckled again, "Since you're the two who came back from Mars, she'll be assisting me with your physicals once we get the alien pilot's lab work done."
The cadets groaned.
"What a day, huh?" Venture asked as he and Wildstar sat in one of Central's lobbies, staring at the artificial plants littering the room. "Why do you think they're taking so long to let us leave?"
Derek shrugged, sinking back in his wordless slump.
"I mean, it's not like we could've caught anything from that pilot," Venture said, more to reassure himself than Wildstar, "Right?"
Derek shrugged again.
Mark changed the subject, hoping it would help, "She's beautiful."
After a moment of continued silence, Wildstar finally replied in a strange tone, "Yeah… she is…"
Then Mark realized his friend wasn't just grieving over his lost brother, he was brooding over that nurse.
"We don't know where we're going to be tomorrow, you know," said Mark.
"Yeah…" Derek said again, "I know…"
"You should talk to her."
"Yeah…"
Mark was about to make a comment about Derek's sparse vocabulary, but was interrupted by none other than the red tin can himself.
"The body and capsule from Mars have been analyzed," the robot announced upon his entrance.
"What about our physicals?" Mark interjected.
"You're both fine," Doctor Sane said, suddenly appearing behind the robot. "Just thought you would like to know since you helped ferry them here."
"Isn't that classified information?" Mark asked.
"Did I tell you anything specific? No! " Doctor Sane's voice screeched a bit, "Trust me, I know what's classified and what's not."
"Thanks for the information," Mark replied, "Do you know if we have any new orders?"
"Return to EDF headquarters. Commander Singleton wants to see you both," Sane replied.
"Thanks, Doc," Derek finally said, then stood with Venture to leave, but just before he got out the lobby door he turned around and asked, "That nurse of yours wouldn't happen to be coming too, would she?"
Commander Singleton's finger tapped the scarlet capsule the Mars team brought back. Just as when Captain Avatar touched it, the image of the stranger appeared and began to speak, albeit in a different language, but the capsule seemed to be equipped with a kind of translation matrix, and, amazingly, it worked decently well.
"I am Starsha of planet Iscandar," the woman paused to take a breath before continuing in her light, melodic voice, "When… and if my sister, Astra, arrives safely with this message to –" here the recording stopped for an instant while the matrix worked to find the right words, but it finally continued, though a bit awkwardly, "planet Earth, come to Iscandar. You have only one year left before the total extinction of all life on," the matrix searched for the right proper noun again. Obviously the people on Iscandar had another name for humanity's home, "Earth. I have sent you the plans for a –" the recording ground to a complete halt for several seconds and then continued in the woman's own language for several words before the computer finally gave a very rough name that didn't make complete sense, but would have to work for the mean time, "Wave Motion Engine so that you can make the long journey to Iscandar. When you get here, we will give you the," another long pause, but this time, the computer finally spit out something that made less sense than its name for the engine plans, "Healing from the Stars. This will remove the radioactivity from Earth and is the only thing that can save you. I wish we could get the Healing from the Stars to you ourselves, but we cannot. Then follow the plans for the Wave Motion Engine. It will get you to Iscandar. We are located a hundred and forty-eight thousand light-years beyond the galactic system. You must reach Iscandar in time to save Earth. May God go with you. I am Starsha, of planet Iscandar."
At the woman's last words, Captain Avatar allowed himself a brief smile and the Commander gave a discrete frown, muttering something under his breath.
"'Healing from the Stars'?" Singleton asked, "Sounds like some sort of cosmological cure-all."
"It seems a very rough translation," Avatar agreed, and then said "You have a better suggestion?"
"Well, in light of the length of the computer's translation, I think something like 'Cosmo DNA' has a more Earth-like quality to it. Not to mention it's easier to remember," Singleton replied.
"'Cosmo DNA' it'll be," Avatar nodded, then after a moment of silence he added, "It's time to gather them… with some adjustments to the crew…"
The Commander nodded soberly, "Indeed…" he looked over at the Captain, "I'm sorry, my friend… I know Alex Wildstar and your son were on that roster… as well as a few others from the fleet… and other battles."
Avatar nodded, "But even with the… losses… I believe I finally found the last of my crew, though it may prove to be a rough transition for them."
Singleton nodded, "I understand completely."
"Why do we keep getting sent here and there now that we're back? It's like we're a couple of ping-pong balls stuck in a box," Mark commented as he and Derek walked from Central Hospital to the EDF's main building.
"Nobody else to do it to?" Derek commented.
"Yeah, maybe," Mark replied, feeling a little uneasy for a reason he just couldn't pin down. An anxious chill hung in the air, and that made him nervous.
They walked in the door and were immediately ushered up to Commander Singleton's office, which only served to heighten Mark's anxiety.
"Welcome, cadets Wildstar and Venture," the EDF chief greeted the young men.
Derek and Mark saluted the chief.
"Thank you for your service at the Mars observation post," the Commander said. "Your attention to your environment made it possible for us to recover information that may prove vital to saving Earth from death. On behalf of the people all over the world, I thank you again."
Derek and Mark nodded. "Thank you, Commander," they both replied.
"Now, your next task is to meet the air car that's waiting for you just outside the building." Commander Singleton looked from one young man to the other, "Enjoy the ride, gentlemen."
The two were summarily dismissed to rendezvous with their vehicle.
Once they left the Commander's office, Mark shook his head. Once again, they were off to another secret location for an undisclosed reason.
"Ah well," he thought, "at least we don't have to fly there."
The two quickly made their way back down to the ground floor and out to the waiting air car. They stepped into the vehicle and both immediately noticed the driver's seat was already occupied by a taxi-bot.
"Not driving either," Mark added to his earlier thought.
The first question out of Derek's mouth as soon as they were seated and the doors shut was, "Where are we going?"
The robot didn't respond.
"Must not be the talkative type," Mark quipped to his friend.
"Yeah, really," Derek rolled his eyes. "I think the higher-ups are using us as some perverse form of entertainment. 'Let's see how many places we can send them in two days,'" Derek said in his best General Stone voice once again.
Once Mark stopped laughing he asked, "Will you never stop doing that?"
"No," Derek replied simply. "He's too much of a drama queen not to imitate."
"I'm sure he would love your description of him."
"Psht!" Derek laughed, seeming to finally be out of his wordless stupor after seeing a pretty girl and being thanked by the head of Earth's defenses. "If he ever found out he'd have me drawn and quartered," Wildstar shook his head, "No sense of humor at all, that guy."
"You said it," Mark agreed.
Suddenly the cab fell quiet; the only sounds were the faint whir of the car's engine, the whisper of the bot's motors, and the cadets' breathing.
Mark looked out the car window and furrowed his brow, "I don't recognize this part of the city."
"Me either," Derek agreed, looking all around them, trying to figure out where they were going.
The air car came to a stop at the base of a set of stairs.
Here, the doors opened and Mark and Derek were wordlessly encouraged by the robotic driver to get out. They hesitantly obeyed and found themselves standing at the base of an unfamiliar set of stairs. At the top of those stairs was something resembling an elevator. A tall shaft ran from the ground up through the ceiling and disappeared into the earth above.
"What's up there?" Mark wondered.
"Please enter the elevator," a computer voice invited the cadets.
Derek shrugged, "Guess we'd better go."
The two quickly entered the elevator and waited for it to engage. Ten seconds later it started up. The wait made Mark all the more anxious. Derek gave no signs of caring at all.
The ride seemed to go on and on until finally the elevator abruptly stopped. The doors opened and both young men nearly fell over in shock at what they saw.
"What… is this…?" Mark asked as he looked around the room set before him.
"Looks like the bridge of a ship," Derek answered.
"I can see that, but how is that possible? EDF isn't building any more ships. We don't have the resources or the time," he looked over at Derek, "Right?"
"That's what they said," Derek replied, "Maybe this is why they didn't have any more resources."
Mark nodded, "Yeah, probably." He craned his neck to see the other side of the bridge.
"You may step out of the elevator, gentlemen," a familiar voice bid them enter.
"Captain Avatar?" Derek asked, both surprised and dismayed to see the veteran captain. "Why are we here? Where is here?" a tinge of anger crept into the young man's tone as he spoke to the captain.
"You are here because you were chosen to help save this world from destruction. You were called here to change the world for the better, to answer the call of a woman who, before yesterday, none of us knew about from a planet we could have never dreamed of."
The confused look on Mark's and Derek's faces made the captain smile.
"That object you brought back – the scarlet and blue crystal capsule – it was a message," the captain explained.
"Message…?" Mark asked, not believing the words he heard.
"Yes, and one unlike any other we have ever received. It was a promise of help from a woman named, 'Queen Starsha' from the planet 'Iscandar,'" Avatar continued, "But… this world is a hundred and forty-eight thousand light years away."
Mark's face fell, "We can't go that far… even if Earth wasn't being bombarded on a daily basis…"
"I know what you're thinking," the captain interrupted Venture's despairing thoughts. "You think we can't possibly make that kind of journey. We have no way to do it, and even if we did, we have no crew to take us there." Avatar smiled, "Well, gentlemen, I am here to tell you that we can make that journey, and we will."
"No way, Captain," Derek sneered, "After all… the rest of our ships were destroyed at Pluto."
Despite the cadet's attitude, Captain Avatar's face lightened even more as he replied, "Not all of them, Wildstar. Not all of them."
* Sandor Aerospace – credit for this name goes to the makers of the Yamato audio drama, "Sea of Stars"
Episode 4: One Last Battleship
"Then show me one! Just one!" Wildstar raised a single accusing finger, "Flagship 227 is intact, but might as well be destroyed. Where is this mighty ship that will somehow 'carry us to glory and deliverance'? " the cadet mocked as Mark looked on speechless.
Venture fought to keep his jaw from hanging open, "Wildstar –" he tried to stop his friend from saying anything else, but Derek wouldn't have it.
"No! I'm sick of this!" Derek snapped at Mark. "He's a captain – he should be responsible for what he does!" Wildstar bellowed, eyes burning with unspent rage, fists now curled into angry, brown-gloved balls.
"Captain, I'm sorry..." Venture offered to Avatar.
The old captain simply raised a patient hand, "There is no need for that, Venture," replied Avatar. "There is something –"
He was cut off by the blaring of emergency alarms.
"Enemy planes sighted near the sunken Yamato. Request emergency response team to investigate," the voice permeated the strange bridge, startling Venture and propelling Wildstar back into some semblance of stability.
"All response teams are currently occupied," a second, tense voice replied to the first.
"I repeat this is an emergency of the utmost importance!" the first voice responded.
"Sending emergency response team now," Captain Avatar replied, his message carrying to the sender of the first plea for assistance.
"What?" Wildstar asked, "but you don't have –"
"Yes, I do," Avatar countered, "I'm looking right at them." He stared at the two cadets intently. "There is a two-man fighter waiting for you in a hangar at the bottom of the elevator you took to get up here.
When neither young man moved to leave, the captain added, "Go on. They'll be almost over the wreck soon."
"Y-yes, Sir," Venture was the first to salute and dash out. Wildstar half-heartedly responded in kind and disappeared after his friend.
"What's so important about an old battleship anyway?" Derek asked as he and Mark flew over the deep, orange and red clay and sand that made up the floor of what was once the Pacific Ocean.
"No idea," Mark replied, "but the enemy has some reason for being out here. Might as well shoot them down while they're on our turf."
"Yeah. Sounds like a good idea to me," Wildstar replied, sounding the most enthusiastic he'd been about anything all day – except for meeting that nurse at Central.
"Target acquired," Mark announced a little shakily – as usual.
"Venture, don't chicken out," Wildstar ordered, as two Gamilon scout planes appeared, first on his radar, then on his target scope, "Just because you weren't in the combat division –"
"Just shut up and shoot, Wildstar," said Mark.
Derek concentrated on the alien planes, starting to feel just like he usually did when he was in charge of bringing down the enemy – in control.
"Just a little more..." he silently urged the closest of the two as he just missed getting a target lock on it. "Half a second and I'll have you, you –"
Red lights everywhere whooped and screeched all around the cockpit as a hundred LEDs went crazy, like a swarm of angry fireflies. The fighter rocked with a small explosion.
"Venture!" Derek screeched over the alarms. "How could you let them hit us?"
"We're not hit, Wildstar," Venture bellowed back, "The engine overheated."
"Worthless piece a' trash!" Wildstar exclaimed and kicked the nearest wall, instantly regretting it as pain shot through his foot and he resorted to calling the old plane more disreputable names.
"They're getting away!" Wildstar whined as Venture was forced the land the ship the best he could under the circumstances.
"At least they're not sticking around to kill us," Venture pointed out, "Now let's get out of this thing before anything else blows. Your suit in airtight, right?"
"Yeah..." Derek replied grudgingly as he unbuckled his safety harness.
Venture fiddled with the radio – one of the few things in the plane that wasn't hopelessly outdated – and sent out a distress call, "Enemy planes have left the area, but our ship is damaged. Repeat, our ship is damaged. We can't make it back to base. Requesting pickup."
Within a few seconds he received an answer, "Roger that, sending a team to your coordinates now."
"Thank you," Venture ended the conversation.
Both cadets climbed out of the plane, its landing partially cushioned by a sand dune.
"Lovely spot you picked, Venture," Wildstar quipped as he trudged up the dune, head down, Venture a good ways ahead of him, very near the top of the dune's crest.
Mark didn't respond.
"I'm surprised that plane even took off," Derek continued, "With the state it was in..." Wildstar finally caught up to Venture and looked up.
"What in the –? Is that what I think it is?" Wildstar breathed as he stared at the sight laid out before his wondering eyes.
"Yeah... I think so," Venture finally replied. "That's the old Yamato."
"It's... more stately than I thought it would be after so many years buried here on the ocean floor," Derek admitted, "But... it's still a wreck... Why are the Gamilon's so interested... in... it –" Derek's face was instantly facing Venture, "Mark, we've gotta get back to that bridge."
"Uh, Derek, our ride's not here yet."
"Wildstar, slow down!" Mark called after Derek as he exited the rescue vehicle not a minute after Wildstar.
"I'm not stopping until I know what that old buzzard is up to," Derek yelled back, "Now hurry up before I leave you to find your own ride!"
Mark broke into a run and just managed to squeeze into the air car, again, mysteriously waiting for them.
"Hey, Tinny," Wildstar greeted the robot who ferried them everywhere today.
The robot, as usual, did not respond.
Derek kicked back in his seat and waited as the car took them back to the same fateful elevator they traversed twice earlier in the day and were about to navigate a third time.
Once they were back, the elevator door whisked open to reveal the anonymous bridge.
Derek immediately marched out of the elevator and into the vast room shouting, "Stop hiding whatever it is you're hiding!"
Mark ran after his friend and managed to catch him before he actually got to the old captain whose back was turned to Derek. Avatar was staring at no-one-knew-what somewhere towards the front of the room.
"You've already seen it, Wildstar," Avatar replied matter-of-factly.
"All I know is that there's something strange going on with that twisted hulk out in the middle of nowhere and I wanna know what!" Derek exclaimed.
The old captain sighed and turned to face the angry cadet, "Perhaps I haven't been clear enough. So let me begin again, Wildstar."
Mark let out a sigh of relief, seeing the captain wasn't letting the emotion of the past cloud him at this crucial point, like Wildstar was.
"Earth was dying; we had no more resources to pull from, so we had to take from what we already had. That included all existing EDF planes, vehicles, and ships... both space-worthy... and seaworthy..."
"The EDF doesn't have any sailing ships," Derek cut in, a sarcastic look in his eyes. "There isn't any water to sail them in."
"They didn't have any," the Captain agreed, ignoring the snarky comment, "Until about five years ago when it was decided by the EDF high council that something had to be done – humanity had to survive at all costs. So they slowly siphoned off a little bit here and there, taking any extra they could find, knowing that if their efforts failed, we would all be doomed – or so they imagined."
The captain slowly approached what looked like a console jutting up out of the floor. He turned to face the two young men, leaning on the console a bit as he did so. "Many countries were enlisted in this effort, one last push to save us all from the enemies that so suddenly appeared from space. And so, they built it – Earth's largest space battleship, using the most accessible shell they could to build their ship. The –"
"The Yamato wreck..." Mark suddenly blurted, so surprised he couldn't contain himself.
"Correct, Venture," Avatar nodded, hiding a smile, "And you are standing on her bridge." The Captain looked pointedly at Derek, "This is the one battleship Earth has to give, Wildstar."
Derek's face morphed into an expression of shock and disbelief, which was compounded when all the lights on the bridge lit at the same moment and the enormous video screen covering a generous portion of the front bridge wall flashed on. An image of Earth's space battleship, Yamato appeared there.
"How...?" Mark began, blinked twice, and started again, "How is this possible, Captain Avatar?"
"It isn't, Venture," the captain replied, "My faith tells me that God only gives us what we can handle, and He helps us carry what we can't carry on our own. Right when the EDF came to the end of their hope and had no more knowledge of how to finally finish this ship, your report came from Mars. The capsule you brought back didn't just include that message. It gave us detailed plans for an engine design, one that we can adapt to use as a prime weapon... which I pray we never have to use."
"It's not finished?" Wildstar blurted, snapping out of his stupor.
"Not completely," Avatar replied, "But it will be in two weeks."
"Do we have two weeks?" Wildstar countered.
"Perhaps not," the Captain replied, "If we must, we will take off before then, but only as a last resort."
"Oh good. Just so we're clear," Wildstar retorted, folding his arms.
"Don't think he can pull it off?" a whiny voice emanated from over behind the captain's chair, positioned near the elevator the two young men disembarked from mere minutes before.
No one answered the strangely familiar voice for a long moment.
Suddenly, out popped the short man they ran into at Central, Dr. Sado Sane.
"What are you doing here?" Derek blurted upon seeing the man.
"Same thing I'm doing here," a woman's soft voice met their ears and the nurse who Sane called "Nova Forrester" stepped out from the same place the doctor was hiding.
This time though, instead of her plain nurse's uniform, the young woman wore something more befitting of the EDF, a black and gold jacket over a gold, collared shirt and calf-length skirt of like coloring. Her hands were in her jacket pockets and she smiled as she looked at the two young men.
"Uh…" Derek failed to start the sentence he was just preparing to say before Nova appeared.
"I'm here too!" a mechanized voice announced, sending Derek into more of a puzzled state than before as none other than IQ-9 rolled out to join the group.
"Anyone else who's here, but not on the bridge?" Wildstar asked, bewildered.
"Just me, laddie," a voice boomed from the ship radio.
"Orion, my engineer on every ship I've ever commanded," Avatar supplied. "He's doing some work down in the engine room."
"Figured that out already," Wildstar replied under his breath, then added so all could hear him, "So what is this? Some group that's gonna save the world?"
"You're almost right," Avatar replied. "These three," he gestured to Sane, Forrester, and IQ, "are only a small sampling of the full crew of this ship."
"Whoa, whoa, whoa," Derek stopped the captain, "'Crew'? You can't be serious about this? What are you even doing with this ship anyway?"
"We, Derek Wildstar, are taking her to Iscandar and coming back home again with the one thing in God's great Universe that can heal this world of the harm done to her these past nine years," the Captain stated, never batting an eye at the unbelievable words coming out of his mouth.
"'We' aren't going anywhere," Wildstar stated, then turned to leave, "'You' can go do this by yourselves – without me. I'm no fool."
"Wildstar," the Captain's voice stopped Derek in his tracks. "You are to be Combat Chief. It was… the position your brother Alex would have held had he been here…"
Derek didn't turn around to face the group he knew was staring at him, but neither did he continue walking. Instead, he stayed rooted to ground, unable to do anything.
The Captain, seeing the young man's struggle turned the group's attention to someone else by continuing, "And you, Mark Venture, are to be my navigator, the position my son Adam would have held had he not gone down with his captain, and his ship, Yukikaze."
Mark was speechless, "Captain, I…It's an honor, Sir…"
"Well, that accounts for one of you," Avatar nodded in gratitude to Venture who saluted the veteran. "Wildstar?" he again looked at the torn young man whose back was still turned to him, "Do you have an answer for me?"
Ever so slowly Derek turned to face the Captain, but this time his head was bowed in a surprising show of respect to the man he clearly despised, and his fist raised to his heart in salute, "I am with you, Captain Avatar." He finally looked up at the old man, "For Alex."
Avatar nodded, "Understood."
The next day was spent in a flurry of activity as Derek and Mark saw portions of the EDF building they didn't know existed.
Venture received an extensive course on the new engine – much of which he didn't understand, but was fascinated by nonetheless.
Wildstar was shown how to use the rebuilt ship's guns – properly – as they were experimental and could be overloaded if not used with care.
The launch date was set for some time in November, a mere few weeks away, but Derek was sure they wouldn't reach that date.
On their second night back, Wildstar became so nervous about the upcoming launch, that he woke up Venture and dragged him back to the ship.
"Wildstar!" Venture called in a harsh whisper, "We can't be here, they'll find us – shoot us – or something else just as bad. Let's get out of here."
"No," Derek replied stubbornly, facing the front row of viewports, obstructed as they were by a thick, outside layer of ocean sediment and radioactive waste, "Something's out there, Mark; I can feel it."
"The only thing you're feeling is recycled air," Venture replied, "Now get back here and we'll –"
"Evening, gentlemen."
Mark froze, wide-eyed when he heard the voice of Captain Avatar coming from somewhere on the dark bridge.
"I felt it too, Wildstar," the old captain continued, ignoring the thick cloud of fear that seemed to suddenly envelope the two cadets.
"It's the enemy," Derek continued, not even turning to salute, so attuned was he to what he thought he perceived.
"They aren't on our radar yet," the Captain replied, "What makes you think it's them?"
"I just know, Captain," Wildstar replied, the feeling of dread now roiling up into alarm.
"Colonel," the crewman addressed his superior officer who sat looking at that same old hologram again, the one of his daughter who was mysteriously kidnapped not long before he'd been assigned to this cursedly far-away post. "Colonel Gantz, the reconnaissance team has returned with the information we were looking for."
The Colonel switched off the device and pocketed it, then stood. "The first descent progress we've made since coming to this backwater place," he spat, bitter thoughts of the past he'd been forced to relinquish swirling through his mind. "If it hadn't been for that cursed Usurper, De –"
"Colonel!" the crewman interrupted him, eyes wide, "The penalty for speaking the traitor's name!"
"Yes, yes, but it isn't anything more than what he has already done to me. We are fortunate that idiot does not govern us any longer as it is him we have to thank for this predicament in the first place," Gantz said bitterly.
"Yes, Colonel, this is true."
"Show me the information," Gantz bid the man.
"Here, Sir," he brought up the files for the Colonel to pick through.
"Ah, geographical data on the site in question, very good. We can use this," Gantz began watching a video feed from one of the scout ships and noticed something. "What is that?" he pointed to a moving dot in the sky, then zoomed in on the thing. "Is that supposed to be some sort of aircraft?" he asked, clearly appalled by the rudimentary appearance, "It is so… puny."
"Yes, Colonel, we know. The scouts did not even bother to engage it. If you watch further, you will see that its own systems fail not long after they started back."
"Their air-worthy craft are worse than their space-worthy ones," Gantz noted. "At least the fleet they sent to our base didn't explode of its own free will. How are they even fighting back at all?"
"We don't know, Sir, but if you look at this set of files you will see the real problem," the crewman opened another virtual information pocket that contained a form of sonar readings for the entire sunken area on the western portion of the planet in question.
"Do we have a visualized version of this?" Gantz asked, his eyes wide.
"Here, Sir," the crewman opened the illustration for the Colonel.
"What is it?" Gantz asked upon seeing the rendering, "It has some features similar to our warships, but that is where the comparison ends. What it really looks like is an enormous boat."
"It's more than that, Sir," the crewman brought up another file set, "We've also been recording and logging their audio transmissions. The translation matrix we received not long ago finally allowed us to decrypt them enough to where we know one thing for certain. Erats* has one last warship, and she will not give up until it is turned into slag."
"Slag it then," Gantz ordered, "And be quick about it."
* Erats – Earth